SCO Secretary General B.K. Nurgaliev’s Speech at the SCO Interbank Consortium Council Meeting

(The city of Bishkek, August 15, 2007)

Dear Vladimir Alexandrovich!
Dear heads of delegations! Ladies and gentlemen!
I’m honored to take part in today’s important forum.

One of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s top-priority lines of activity is to encourage effective and active economic cooperation between its member states and observer states. We have been able to establish the solid legal framework for the SCO’s activity in this field including such a fundamental document as the Program of Long-term Multilateral Trade and Economic Cooperation.

Our countries identified such high-priority mutually beneficial lines of cooperation as transportation, power engineering, information and telecommunications technologies. We launched the website “Regional Economic Cooperation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.” We established a mechanism of holding regular meetings of ministers responsible for foreign-economic and foreign-trade activities. A great deal of work on implementing the decisions made is being done within 16 relevant special working groups in charge of various lines of activity.

The SCO established ties and expands its cooperation with the CIS, EurAzEC, the UNDP, the Asian Development Bank, ESCATO UN. With the two latter organizations’ financial assistance an intergovernmental Agreement on Creating Favorable Conditions for International Motor Transportation is being prepared.

As is generally known, the SCO is fertile ground for developing coordinated approaches of its six founder states and four observer states to ensuring regional integration.

We have to hear rather often an unpleasant argument that the SCO’s economic development is lagging behind the dynamics of political cooperation. To my mind, the problem is not that the number of coordinating and planning bodies is not sufficient. We’ve got 17 bodies. The legal framework for cooperation in economic and investment sectors is also solid: 33 major documents have been signed during a period of six years; this is a period of the SCO’s existence. Another 8 documents are about to be signed soon. The problem is how to implement agreements on promoting economic integration. This of course depends on the countries involved and on the availability of financial and other resources needed to carry out specific projects. The SCO needs a solid investment portfolio.

It’s quite natural that high expectations for expanding the economic development in the SCO”s activity are associated with the Interbank Consortium and the Business Council. The SCO Secretariat seeks to maintain close ties with the Interbank Consortium and the Business Council. On the whole the SCO’s economic cooperation plans and projects are, to tell you the truth, at the stage of legal, organizational and financial coordination. The problem is that until now we have failed to create an efficient system to fund economic projects proposed by SCO member states.

That is why we are glad that the Interbank Consortium adopted the Action Program to promote regional economic cooperation within the SCO and that  a number of agreement on extending credit lines and joint financing of investment projects have been signed.  The total amount of them should exceed 740 million US dollars.

There are plans to sign an Agreement on Cooperation between the Interbank Consortium and the SCO Business Council tomorrow and everyone hopes that it would create favorable conditions for raising funds to carry out “pilot” projects.

In this respect there are considerable expectations that the Interbank Consortium will take an active part in raising credits to fund specific projects in large, small and medium-sized business on the territories of SCO member states.

The Interbank Consortium cooperation with observer states and Afghanistan has considerable and so far untapped potential.

We are convinced that steps being taken within the Interbank Consortium and agreements being worked out today would yield tangible results in the trade and economic sphere in the near future and bring about SCO member states’ sustainable welfare growth. In order to make it possible we should fully use such advantages of our organization as vast joint geographical space, huge natural and human recourses, complementarity of our economies, high educational, scientific and technological potential.

Taking this chance, I would like to present my best wishes to all the participants in the SCO Interbank Consortium Council meeting for continued successful activity and success in all endeavors, good health and happiness!